


like fireflies

by SummerFrost



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: :D?, Alcohol, Beaches, Childhood Friends, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Biphobia, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship, Reunions, at least one extended metaphor about bugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 19:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17127386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/pseuds/SummerFrost
Summary: When Eric was little, he and his only friend used to watch the fireflies drift through the yard like they were forming constellations. The stars look the same in California, but Kenny looks different.





	like fireflies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dieofthatroar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dieofthatroar/gifts).



> Happy epifest 2018! I'm happy I still got to participate despite my busy schedule via pinch hit <3 Dieofthatroar asked for childhood friends and I was delighted to oblige! I have vaguely handwaved the age difference between Bitty and Kent&Jack because it gave me a headache to write around--in this AU, Bitty and Kent are the same age. 
> 
> Endless thanks to the #betacrew--shipped-goldstandard, agrossunderstatement, soundslikepenance, and blithelybonny <3
> 
> Fic title inspired by [Me and Charlie Talking by Miranda Lambert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EGabHDMUN0), which is an excellent song if you wanna get all nostalgic about childhood first loves.

“If things turned out different,” Eric says, then stops.

Kent spins the champagne bottle in his hands slowly. “Yeah?” His nails are clipped short and neat and painted shiny taupe. Eric can still picture them wrapped around his daddy’s football.

The tide might be coming in. Eric doesn’t know enough about the California ocean, or the moon, or the way sand feels under his fingertips when he asks, “Do you think we could’ve ended up together?”

Kent makes a sound that could be a laugh and looks at Eric sideways. He’s smiling, exasperated, with straight teeth and tiny wrinkles around his eyes that Eric wouldn’t notice if he were being normal about this.

“Sorry,” Eric says, biting his lip. “Let’s—nevermind.”

“Remember the last time we drank this shit together?” Kent asks. He gestures with the bottle and Eric snags it and takes a long swig.

He wipes at his mouth and says, “New Year’s?”

Kent takes a drink too. “The other last time.”

_ It’s all a last time,  _ Eric thinks.  _ I stopped missing you. _

But he says, “States. Coach was so proud of you.”

Kent laughs again and nestles the bottle into the sand. “I think I would’ve kissed you, if you were—fuck. If you—it’s coming out wrong. If—if—”

“If people like us could’ve,” Eric says softly, his knees drawn up and his eyes fixed somewhere towards Madison, Georgia, so far away from who he is at twenty-six and so far south that the goosebumps vanish off his skin.

“If I’d known back then,” Kent tells him instead. His voice hurts. “Christ, it took me so long to figure out.”

Eric turns his head again, so he can watch Kent’s face. “When did you?”

“College, I guess.” Kent looks back at his beach house, where there’s a single light on upstairs. “Are you cold? We could go inside.”

“Um, not really,” Eric lies. He looks to his own rental, two doors down. The rest of the bachelor party is on the porch now and he can hear the ghost of music if he closes his eyes.

“I’ll just grab a blanket,” Kent tells him, standing up and brushing the sand off his jeans. He smirks faintly, like he used to when he was leaned up against Eric’s locker. He leans down to shake the nearly-empty champagne bottle and adds, “And like, some wine or something.”

Eric says, “Okay,” and does not ask for vodka or for a blanket, or for ten years of something that feels like a phantom limb.

He watches the ocean while Kent is gone and thinks about how vast it is, how it could swallow him. When they were young, Eric and Kent used to drive to the lake and see who could use the tire swing to launch themselves the farthest into the water. Kent always won and one time Eric hit the surface wrong and the brackish water coated his throat and he learned—it doesn’t take much to drown.

Kent comes back with the wine and two blankets and drapes one over Bitty’s shoulders, and Bitty tells the ocean, “I was in love with you.”

Kent sits back down in the sand and passes the bottle.

 

~*~

 

_ Earlier. _

“Bits, it’s our first night here!” Adam shouts as he comes up the stairs. “You’re not gonna hide in your room all night, are ya?”

Bitty looks away from the window and forces a smile. “Oh, um—I’m just worn out from the flight?” He turns his palms up in defeat. “Maybe I’ll join y’all later.”

Adam narrows his eyes for a moment, then sighs as he plops down on the bed next to Bitty. “Look, Bits—I know the timing sucks, okay? Ethan was a giant chode—and not the fun kind—and it’s, like, kinda weird being here alone or whatever—but you’re  _ not  _ alone.”

“I know,” Bitty mutters. He closes his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna be a wet blanket all weekend. We’re here for Chris.”

“We’re here for the squad,” Adam corrects and thumps Bitty on the spine too hard. “But the wedding’s a sw’awesome excuse.”

Bitty laughs wetly. “Right.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Adam leaves his hand on Bitty’s back and says, “Just try and cut loose, okay?”

“Sure,” Bitty says.

“And who knows.” Adam ruffles Bitty’s hair. “Maybe you’ll pick up.”

Bitty snorts, but a smile creeps onto his face. “Maybe, if you wingman me. And someone plies me with margaritas. And I somehow forget my soul-crushing loneliness and never-ending despair at being dumped by a man who didn’t understand the difference between a pie and a tart, who was clearly my soulmate.”

Adam barks out a surprised laugh. “Twenty-six changed you, man.”

“No, no! I’m serious!” Bitty insists, grinning, and puts a hand up to his forehead in obvious despair. “He was the  _ one,  _ Adam Birkholtz. How will my heart go  _ on?” _

They laugh together until Adam stands back up and stretches, saying, “Well, I’m glad you’re okay, Bits. I’ll save the good rum for ya.”

“Thanks,” Bitty answers, still smiling. “Be down in a bit.”

Adam gives him a mock salute over the shoulder as he bounds back out of the room and downstairs, and Bitty turns back to the window.

The ocean is stretched out in the near-distance, close enough that the dying sliver of sun sinking over the horizon can light up the waves lapping at the shore. It’s a good view from this room, and not a crowded stretch of beach.

California stars look the same as in Boston. Bitty bends down to rifle through his suitcase and pulls out Señor Bun—worse for the wear after all the years, but still stitched together in one piece.

“Yeah,” Bitty whispers, tracing his finger along one threadbare ear. “We’ll be okay.”

 

~*~

 

“Bitty, go long!” Justin shouts the next morning, and throws the Frisbee so high over Bitty’s head that he couldn’t catch it even if he jumped.

He takes off running instead, kicking up hot sand under his bare feet as he tries to outrun the Frisbee that, he realizes with horror, is hurtling straight towards some poor soul carrying an umbrella and some towels towards the water.

“Look out!” Bitty squeaks—just in time for the stranger to turn and get smacked in the face instead of the back of his head.

The Frisbee clatters to the ground. The very tall—and very handsome—man rubs the bridge of his nose and bends down to scoop it up before Bitty comes to a stumbling halt in front of him.

“Oh my gosh, I’m  _ so sorry! _ ” Bitty blurts, a hand covering his mouth, trying and failing to smother the hysterical giggles bubbling out of his throat. “Really, I—hee—is your, um—your—”  _ very nice _ “—face? Okay?”

The stranger smiles instead of answering, blue eyes glinting with mischief. He hides the Frisbee behind his back and says, “I’m not sure I should give this back. Apparently it’s a weapon.”

Bitty laughs and bites his lip. He’s not sure if he’s reading this right, but—“Well, I ain’t above bribin’ you for it.”

Someone from Bitty’s group whistles sharply, which makes Bitty scowl and the stranger chuckle, eyes flicking between the pack of shirtless Frisbee-less bros in the distance and somewhere near Bitty’s collarbone. “I could be—”

“Babe?” Another man—closer to Bitty’s height and blond—calls out, jogging down to them from further up the beach. “You’re not already picking…”

He trails off when he gets close and does a double take, bumping hard into Bitty’s Frisbee-captor and bracing both hands on his body. And it’s odd, looking at him, because there’s this sense—this thing in Bitty’s stomach that he can’t place, like an ache, like how it felt to be eighteen and driving—

“Sorry,” the blond man says. He has freckles. “You just…look so much like—”

Bitty’s voice breaks.  _ “Kenny?” _

Kent makes some kind of sound that turns into, “Eric!” halfway through, and his teeth are in a smile against Bitty’s neck. “Holy  _ shit!” _

“Eric?” the stranger asks.

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ Kent repeats. “What the fuck!”

Bitty wriggles out of their hug to regain use of his lungs. He breathes and laughs through the grin plastered on his face and tries so, so hard not to cry. “What’re you  _ doin’  _ here?”

“What are  _ you _ —”

“Bitty!” Adam bellows from approximately three thousand miles away. “I respect your right to get that dick, but can we get our Frisbee back?”

Bitty yelps indignantly.  _ “Adam!” _

The Frisbee, previously being held for ransom, flies over Bitty’s head in a perfect spin. Adam catches it and gives them a jaunty wave.

“Thanks, bro! And by the way!” he shouts. “As Bitty’s designated wingman, I’d like to inform you that he is  _ excellent  _ with his—”

Adam is then, mercifully, tackled to the ground by Justin, who is Bitty’s only real friend.

Bitty covers his face with one hand and turns back to Kent and Kent’s friend. “Kenny,” he says plainly, “it’s been nice seeing you again. Mr. Frisbee-man, sorry for you face. I am going to walk into the ocean now.”

“So soon?” Kent teases. He takes Bitty’s wrist and pulls it away so that their eyes can meet. It hurts, how easy it is—how it used to be the only thing that was. “You haven’t even met Jack.”

Bitty looks away from Kent and up at Jack instead, who’s rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand sheepishly. The other arm is still holding his folded-up umbrella and beach towels, all clutched at a slightly awkward angle that doesn’t seem to bother him.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Jack. It’s okay, about my face. I, uh. Don’t use it much.”

“Hi, Jack,” Bitty answers, biting at his lip again. Some cheers erupt from behind him, probably because someone made a decent pass for once. His wrist falls from Kent’s grip and the bones creak. “Do…y’all wanna play Frisbee?”

 

~*~

 

Kent jogs over from across the group, ducking under a pass thrown by Chris, and plops down at Bitty’s feet. “So,” he says, and pokes at Bitty’s ankle bone.

“So,” Bitty repeats, and drops to the sand too.

“Bitty.” Kent flops onto his back and immediately winces when the sun hits his face.

Bitty scoops a pile of sand onto Kent’s bare chest. “Kent Parson.”

“No,” Kent says. “We’re saying names we didn’t have before. For example: mayhaps your friends also call you Mooncakes.”

More sand. Bitty fights the urge to pour some into Kent’s mouth like he did once when they were children.

_ God, we used to be children. _

“Do you have a new name?” he asks mildly, fingers hovering above skin and the tips burning from holding the hot sand too long.

Kent’s eyes are still closed. He manages to dump a handful of sand on Bitty’s crotch anyway, because he’s always been a dick. “You’re in California.”

“So are you.”

Kent says, “Eric.”

Bitty brushes the sand off his swim trunks and sighs. “We’re just here for a bachelor party. I—Chris, he’s gettin’ married. I, um—I live in Boston, actually.”

“You made it out, then,” Kent says.

_ You left me.  _ Bitty takes off his sunglasses and slips them onto Kent’s face. “You knew I went to Samwell.”

“College isn’t out,” Kent answers. “Not for real.”

Bitty quietly asks, “That why you never came home?”

Kent sits up abruptly. “You know my step-dad—” he cuts off, shaking the sand out of his hair with one hand. “You know.”

“Yeah,” Bitty agrees. He bites his lip and touches Kent’s knee gently. “I’m sorry. I just—you could’ve stayed with us.”

“Is Coach still a bag of dicks?” Kent asks. His eyelashes flutter behind the translucent lenses, barely visible.

“He’s trying,” Bitty says automatically, then laughs.

Kent raises an eyebrow.

Bity drops his hand off Kent’s knee. “I’m the one who stopped trying, I guess. I mean, I don’t go home anymore either. Or—I guess it’s not in Georgia.”

“Providence,” Kent says. “Like, in Rhode Island. I’m just in Rhode Island.”

Bitty laughs and draws his knees up to his chest. “I guess I coulda known. Not like we’re not still on Facebook.”

“Why would you look?” Kent says. “I’m just some football goon your parents felt sorry for.”

“You were my only  _ friend,”  _ Bitty insists, his voice pitching high and cracking. “Kenny, I—”

Kent is watching the Frisbee game going on around them. “Not anymore.”

Justin is trying to get Chris to pose for increasingly intricate selfies while Adam throws the Frisbee to Jack, and Derek sticks his leg out to trip Will up and keep him from intercepting. Bitty smiles sheepishly when Chris mouths,  _ ‘help,’  _ in their direction.

“You’re happy,” Kent says, like it half wants to be a question.

Bitty turns his head before the boys can see the way his eyes are shining. “Are you?”

“I mean, I’m, uh, here with my fiancé, so.” Kent shrugs, turning his palms up with a smile.

“Oh,” Bitty says, then forces it out better the second time. “Oh! Kent, that’s—oh my gosh! That’s so wonderful, I—where is she? I mean, I’d love to—if you wanted to introduce us?”

Kent pushes his borrowed sunglasses up his face and gives Bitty a dry look. “You just met him.”

_ Him,  _ Bitty thinks, and the thing is—

Eric Bittle grew up in Madison, Georgia, and Kent Parson lived across the street in the house the cops always showed up at, and Kent and Eric would climb up onto the roof and throw the football back and forth after Kent’s hands had stopped shaking and talked about nightmares, and cartoons, and the swamp monster that may or may not live in the lake.

_ Him,  _ Bitty thinks, and the thing is—

Kent Parson once punched a linebacker twice his size and pulled Eric Bittle out of a supply closet, and Eric and Kent crept into the nurse’s office and winced when they poured alcohol on the cuts, and Eric didn’t ask why Kent knew what to do about bruises, and Eric did ask,  _ D’you think they call me that—that word because it’s true?  _ and Kenny put a hand in Eric’s hair and couldn’t answer.

_ Him,  _ Bitty thinks, and he says, “Oh, I—I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“S’okay,” Kent answers. He laughs and takes the sunglasses all the way off. “I was like, painfully fucking straight in high school.”

Bitty takes the sunglasses back and twirls them in his hands. “Sorry.”

Kent asks, “For what?”

“Your—” Bitty suppresses a giggle. “Your dad was always afraid you’d catch it. The gay. You caught the—”

Kent cackles and tries—and succeeds, because Bitty’s always gone down easy—to put Bitty in a headlock. “You’re still such a little shit.”

_ I wanted to marry you,  _ Bitty thinks. Late nights snuggled in bed alone, watching Kent with a different cheerleader at every homecoming, imagining himself there—wondering what it would be like, if someone would love him—when it was the only safe thing he had.  _ I didn’t think I could. _

“Some things don’t change,” Bitty says. Everything else on the tip of his tongue.  _ You were always the only one who could touch me. _

But Kent lets him go and ruffles his hair, which flusters Eric just as badly as it did at fifteen. “C’mon,” he says, “meet Jack for real.”

“Um, about that.” Bitty worries at his bottom lip. “I  _ definitely  _ tried to steal your man earlier. Sorry?”

Kent bursts out laughing as he pulls them both to their feet, assuring him, “Bitty. Eric, my long-lost friend. I literally can’t even fucking explain how many fucks I do not give.”

“You said that after that time I got us caught sneakin’ into  _ Paranormal Activity,  _ too,” Bitty points out warily, but he lets Kent drag him into the Frisbee-fray.

“I was  _ totally  _ cool about that!” Kent insists.

Bitty tugs free of Kent’s grip and gestures emphatically. “You  _ superglued  _ a  _ pie!” _

Kent narrows his eyes, challenges, “You can’t prove shit, Bittle,” and takes a running leap at Jack, who, to his immense credit, manages to catch him without being bowled over.

“Hey, Bitty,” Adam asks, “how do you know these guys again?”

“Adam,” Bitty says instead, “I would like to get very drunk now.”

And because he’s a good friend when it counts, Adam says, “Very well, good sir,” and runs for the liquor stash.

 

~*~

 

Bitty is thoroughly smashed by the time Kent says his goodbyes, and working his way to a 9 PM hangover by the time the group embroils themselves in a debate over the costs/benefits of dragging Chris to a strip club.

“Okay, Bittle,” Justin tells him, planting his hands firmly on the table. “Your options are a gallon of water and two Advil or—the hero’s option—double down and do three shots with me right now.”

“Do you think if I did both it would kill me?” Bitty asks.

“Possibly,” Justin says. “Science just isn’t advanced enough to tell.”

Bitty eyes the bottle of Captain Morgan sitting on the counter behind Justin’s shoulder. “Can science tell me why life is weird and terrible?”

“Yikes,” Derek says from the other end of the table. “Just pick the alcohol, bro.”

“Good idea,” Bitty decides.

Justin grabs Bitty’s arm and raises it up in a cheer. “The hero’s option!”

The entire room stops their conversation to cheer back, “ _ The hero’s option!”  _ and just like that, the (very cursed) strip club plan is abandoned in favor of hoisting Bitty into the air and almost concussing him on the ceiling.

_ I wish you could see me,  _ Bitty thinks to the scared fourteen year-old he used to be, even as he laughs and begs his friends to put him down. Even as he thinks about Kent Parson, two beach houses down the strip and still wounded and kind and terribly beautiful.  _ I wish I could tell you we’ll be okay. _

 

~*~

 

Bitty pushes the hangover to 11 PM on sheer willpower and dark rum, at which point he escapes the drinking-game madness of the house and stumbles onto the beach in search of the cool air. He shoves his hands in his pockets and wanders down the coast, looking up at stars that seem just as generic as they did yesterday.

He’s not sure what he wants them to be instead. He’s not sure why he isn’t surprised to find Kent on the porch, alone.

“Hey,” Kent says softly. He’s changed out of his bathing suit into a park of dark jeans and an old-looking Henley. “It’s weird. But I feel like…”

“Me too,” Bitty says.

Kent smiles. “Think we could make it to the roof?”

Bitty laughs and admits, “I’m about five shots too deep for that.”

“Cheers.” Kent vaults over the railing instead of going around and botches the landing, stumbling forward and kicking up sand as he flails around to find his balance. “Haha, fuck.”

“You’re still such an oaf,” Bitty tells him fondly. He almost touches his shoulder, fingers twitching, and doesn’t.

“C’mon, man, I used to be suave.” Kent runs a hand through his hair, cowlicks springing up dramatically, and Bitty does touch him then—a quick pat on the shoulder, then wrings his hands together when he doesn’t know what to do with them anymore.

He manages to tease, “Sure, hun.”

“You’re the only one who knew how to be mean to me,” Kent says suddenly.

Bitty holds a surprised laugh in with his teeth. “What?”

“Sorry.” Kent does laugh. “That’s like, not really what I meant. Forget it.”

Bitty reaches for him and he turns away, resting his forearms on the bannister. “Kenny?”

“When you hurt me,” Kent says slowly, the words falling in measured intervals, “I never believed you meant it. I dunno how you did that.”

There’s sand in Bitty’s lungs. He moves closer, leaning against the same weathered wood and looking up at the house. “I told you. You were my best—my only friend. I—Kenny, you didn’t deserve—”

“Wanna know a secret?” Kent asks. Eric can picture it punctuated with the pass of a football, feel the thump of it caught in his hands.

_ Wanna know a secret?  _ Kent Parson asked at ten, twelve, seventeen. Shingles under bare feet and Eric’s mama hollering for them and never thinking to look up.  _ I’m gonna get outta here one day. _

At twenty-six, Eric says, “Always.”

“I didn’t deserve you, either.”

Eric’s eyes well up and the sand must be in his throat, too, the way Kent’s name comes out like he’s begging for it. “Kenny—”

“Don’t cry,” Kent murmurs, smiling the way he does when nothing’s funny. He looks at Eric and back away. “And wait here.”

“What—” Eric starts, but Kent is already climbing back over the railing—more gracefully this time—and darting into the house. He returns a few minutes later with an unopened bottle of champagne, which he hands to Eric before jumping down to the sand again despite the perfectly good stairs three feet to his left.

Eric says, “You know, havin’ a serious conversation with you is kinda like wrestlin’ an eel—blindfolded.”

“Aww, baby,” Kent coos, a hand to his chest, “that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. And also? Depressingly Southern. Can you drive in the snow like a Yank?”

“You bring it out in me,” Eric tells him. He jumps when Kent shakes the bottle to pop the cork, foam and spritz covering both their hands. “And I’m a better driver than you, Parson.”

“Low bar—but fair.” Kent leaves the champagne for Eric to hold and wanders closer to the ocean.

Eric takes a long drink, scrunching up his nose as the booze fizzles. “Um, where’s Jack?”

“Reading in the house, probs sleeping soon.” Kent smiles fondly. “He’s not a big partier.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Eric says, “He, um, seems really great. I’m…happy for you.”

“Me too,” Kent answers brusquely. He drinks for even longer than Eric. “I didn’t think—you know, it still feels like something I’m…letting myself have.”

Eric doesn’t know what to say to that. He tilts the bottle in Kent’s hands to look at the label. “What’re we celebratin’?”

Kent laughs and swings an arm around Eric’s shoulders, tugging until Eric rests his cheek against him. “Whatever we fucking can, Er-bear.”

And Eric asks.  _ Do you think we could’ve ended up together? _

 

~*~

 

And after Eric asks, and after they talk about champagne and people like them, and after Kent comes back with two blankets because maybe he can still tell when Eric lies—

Kent sits down in the sand, and watches Eric drink, and says, “I knew.”

Eric looks over at him, eyes wide and his cheek resting on one drawn-up knee.

“I knew, and I wanted—” Kent cuts off and hides his face, eyes closing as he turns away. “Fuck, it’s so stu—I thought, like,  _ ‘Eric’s so great. I wish I could want him back.’” _

“But you could’ve,” Eric says, voice shaking.

“It was different for me.” Kent opens his eyes and traces designs into the sand, little abstract things that don’t hold their shape in the dry evening. “I know you knew—and it was so fucking hard for you. But no one—no one told me you could be bi. No one told me the way I felt  _ existed.” _

Eric reaches out, so slowly, and touches Kent’s wrist—he flinches, then stills. “I’m sorry.”

“We can’t be sixteen again,” Kent says. His thumb drags over the nearest bit of Eric’s skin, and maybe it’s an accident. “I can’t kiss you when we win states.”

“I know,” Eric whispers, but he’s still holding onto Kent’s wrist like it means something. Like he won’t let go of it and they won’t back to being people they used to know—soft reminders of a bad home.

Kent slips his hand down in Eric’s grip and threads their fingers together. He watches the horizon and says, “But we can—we can learn each other again. If you wanna.”

Eric closes his eyes. “Kent, you’re en-engaged, I can’t—”

“Remember the last year we caught fireflies together?” Kent asks.

Eric snorts despite himself and raises an eyebrow. “Do you mean  _ lightnin’ bugs?” _

Kent lets go of Eric’s hand to gesture with both hands. “Beside the point.”

“I remember,” Eric answers softly. He smiles faintly, his eyes closing again, suddenly eight years-old and sitting in the warm grass, watching the tiny lights fade and shine. “Mama told me they die if you keep ‘em trapped in those jars too long. I cried my eyes out.”

Kent tells him, “’Cause you’ve got the best heart,” and his hand is on Eric’s knee like it shouldn’t be, if Eric is hoping not to cry again.

“It was your heart too.” Eric wipes at his eyes and hides a sniffle with a laugh. “You ran the whole neighborhood with me, gettin’ the other kids to set ‘em all free.”

“Yeah,” Kent says.

Eric sighs, then looks up. Kent is staring at him with something bright and genuine, like a knife sharpened too thin to hurt.

“When you love someone, you leave the door open.” Kent picks the wine bottle up, still mostly full, and frays the label with a manicured fingernail. “Took me a while to figure that one out.”

“I don’t…” Eric bites his lip. “I don’t understand?”

Kent laughs. “’Cause I’m being a cryptic asshole.”

Eric shoves him lightly. “Well, yeah, but I’m tryin’ to be polite about it.”

A deep breath. Kent yanks an entire corner of the label away, the sticky film clinging to the dark glass and the edge of his polish. “I wasn’t gonna—I mean, I didn’t want—I didn’t wanna force anything, is the point, but I feel like you should know.”

“That it’s officially legal to strangle you?” Eric asks.

Kent ignores him. “That I’m— _ we’re,  _ like, me and Jack—that we’re polyamorous, and I don’t think love is a thing you put in a fucking jar and I think I could fall in love with you now like I wasn’t ready to back then, and also I’m gonna go throw up immediately right now bye Eric—”

_ “Kenny,”  _ Eric begs, scrambling half to his feet to reach Kent’s wrist and pull him back, both with their eyes wide and their lungs caught in gasps.

When Eric Bittle was nine, he sat on the roof and watched lightning bugs like they were stars, ever-changing constellations as they drifted and glimmered,  _ alive, alive,  _ and rested his head on Kent’s shoulder and said,  _ It’s prettier this way, anyhow,  _ and Kent Parson asked for the first time,  _ Wanna know a secret? _

Eric watches the man in front of him—changing angles, fading ghosts—and grieves. For knowing the taste of lakewater, for eight years of airtight seals on mason jars. And pulls himself to his feet, and touches the wrist bones of a new old friend, and asks, “Like fireflies?”

Kenny smiles and lets the ocean swallow it up. “Lightnin’ bugs.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm most active on [my Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/summerfrost) these days, but I do also still have [Tumblr!](https://www.yoursummerfrost.tumblr.com)


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